No Firefox Mobile beta before March (at least)

We'd had a fleeting hope that after last month's Alpha 2 release we might see an actual Windows Mobile beta build of Fennec, the upcoming Firefox Mobile browser, in the first couple of months of the year. Alas, it's not to be.

Mozilla's Fennec test plan notes Feb. 27 as the scheduled date for the Beta 1 release, then lets us down in no uncertain terms.

NOTE: this is a Beta1 for Maemo, not Windows Mobile or Symbian

So, work continues, and it sounds like they're making progress. Here are the WinMo notes from this week's Fennec meeting:

Building from trunk is blocked by NSPR, NSS and freetype font backend patches getting review. The font patch has been getting regular review and update, its being held up somewhat now because of conflicts with @font-face work. NSS and NSPR patches have stalled out.

Performance is improving steadily, once we can build from the trunk the focus will be on getting performance patches landed.